Title: As You Are, So Am I
III: Memory
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Author's Notes: This chapter was particularly hard to write given the characters involved, mostly because, if Dawn of the Dead has a failing, it's that few of the characters are developed as well as they ought to be. Minor characters that become major players have to go through some evolution in order for them to have some purpose to the story; otherwise they're just your typical exchangeable victims (characters guilty of this: Glenn, Monica, Nicole, Luda, Norma, Bart). However, those characters are easy to write—they have stock personalities (the slut, the racist, the this, the that). I was more interested in someone who evolved, and hopefully this chapter explicates the reasons for that evolution. Enjoy.
Everyone went to sleep so damn early. While he should have been able to chalk it up to the fact that most of the folks in his mall didn't work the late shift—prior to the world going to Hell, that was—it didn't cease to annoy C.J. For one, the nurse, Ana—he couldn't stop thinking of her as 'that fucking nurse' even if they got along better now—she was an early riser. He'd manage to exhaust himself through welding work on the buses so that he could crash at a relatively early time, like three or four am. All he'd get for it was her being up and about not more than three hours after he'd fallen into bed. It was getting on his nerves.
Luckily, the lack of societal supervision in the post-apocalypse Crossroads Mall meant that not a few of the others eventually started to live life according to their natural internal clocks. Kenneth and Michael slept as late as nine some mornings, and Terry and Nicole were never seen before ten, though their company was scarce at night, too, for reasons he preferred not to investigate too thoroughly. Steve kept scatter-shot hours, awake here and there in the night or day, never on any routine C.J. bothered to keep track of, but usually coinciding with any moments Monica might find free in her day. Tucker and Glenn stayed up late with him, enjoying some still-cool beer, bemoaning their fates when the generators died and warm Buds were all they had.
They were up now, in Hallowed Grounds, tossing back some cold ones, wiped from a day's work. Glenn had shown surprising talent for the re-wiring the buses required, and Tucker, despite his still-healing injury, had gophered all day. A chilled can of suds was the very least this world owed them, C.J. figured.
"Tucker, toss me another," he called when the other man got up for a refresher. "Glenn?"
"No, thank you." Glenn never had more than one. C.J. always asked, but the church-boy refused anything more tempting. It was what he was good at. That and prayers. Before Glenn would pop a tab, he'd say a Hail Mary. Shrugging to himself, C.J. caught the beer can Tucker lobbed underhanded with one hand and reached into his back pocket to pull out his date book.
"What's that?" Tucker settled himself on a stool one over from C.J., resting his foot on the one between them.
"'S a journal," C.J. muttered, hoping that would answer and avoid any more questions. To his horror, Glenn looked up from his bible, taking an interest.
"A journal about our time here?"
"More or less," he said, noncommittally. It wasn't a big deal. If it had been, he'd have shared, right? The others didn't seem inclined to think so. Instead of being unimportant, his stupid date book, which no one had ever noticed him scratching in before, was secretive and, therefore, attractive.
"What d'ya write in it?" Tucker asked, gulping down a full third of his fresh can.
"The date, mostly." This was true if vague.
"Keeping track of time, are we?" Glenn sounded keen, almost proud. He couldn't figure why someone like Glenn would be so pleased by such a small gesture, but maybe that was part of his faith—good works were small deeds or something. It had been a long time since C.J.'d been to anything resembling a church.
"Yeah, sort of."
"You write what we do in there?" Tucker leaned forward to get a better look at the small ledger. C.J. was faced with a problem. If he pulled his journal back now, it would mean a round of teasing he didn't need, want, or have the patience to tolerate. If he left it out and had to answer ceaseless questions about it...well, pretty much the same thing would happen. Damned, one way or the other.
"I keep track of what's been happening in the past couple of weeks, yeah."
"Like 'Day Three: was stuck in cage again all day?"
"Very funny."
"I was under the impression," Glenn interjected, "that caged men often are more aware of time's passage than free men. It makes complete sense that someone would have kept a journal, especially you, C.J."
Tucker and he shared a look at Glenn's expense before C.J. gave a neutral, "huh," in reply.
"When I ministered to men in prison—"
"You were a chaplain?" Tucker interrupted.
"No, merely a social worker, spreading the good word." If Glenn didn't constantly refer to his religious works with such a complete lack of artifice or irony, C.J. might have been able to swallow it; but Glenn's virtuous, humorless, one-hundred-percent faithful, obedient humility grated on his nerves.
"So, basically, you were selling snake oil to a captive audience."
That got a reaction. Glenn's expression was the picture you'd find next to the definition of the word 'shock' and probably some other words, too: outrage, shame, pride, defiance. Good. In the past week and a half, strangers had broken into his mall, stolen his gun, kept him captive, then relied upon him to help them out and talked him into making a mad dash for an unknown island sometime in the near future. It was about goddamned time one of them stopped believing whole-heartedly in what they were doing, or what they were about.
"You seem to have a problem with the church, C.J."
"No problem, really. I just don't buy trusting in someone you've never seen to cover your ass when it's in the fire."
"Amen, brother," Tucker chimed in, raising his Budweiser in salute and draining down. "Never trucked with religion of any sort myself. Kept away from it so long as it kept away from me."
"Regardless of your skepticism," Glenn dismissed them gently, "God is watching out for us nonetheless. How else can you explain how we have come to be here in this fortress of safety?"
"Luck," C.J. spat out. "Good or bad, I can't tell just yet, but it's all a matter of odds."
"I'd say good luck. Better to be alive or dead than whatever those things are." They were quiet for a moment after Tucker spoke, tuning back into what had otherwise become merely white noise: the sounds of the dead banging on their doors.
"We should pity them," Glenn said quietly. "They are trapped souls unable to find their way to Heaven. Perhaps it's true what Reverend Jones said on the radio: Hell is overflowing and has leaked out its damned upon the streets."
"If those are the damned out there," Tucker rubbed his chin, mock-thoughtful, "what the hell am I doing in here?"
"Amen to that," C.J. agreed.
Undaunted, Glenn adjusted his approach. "Is that why you write in a journal? Is that your form of confession?"
"No." He wasn't interested in redemption—he just didn't want to die. And, although some of the folks at the Crossroads might not believe it, C.J. understood death had as many levels to it as life did. It's not that he didn't care if he physically lived or dead—he most certainly had a firm pro-living stance on that issue—but what would it matter if he lived or died and no one knew? It hadn't taken the end of the world to make him think like this, he always had, but it helped. His current problem was explaining that to Tucker and Glenn.
"It's just my life. Stuff that happens to me. I've always kept one."
"Not me, man," Tucker shook his head, chuckling. "I used to try to keep up and I'd make it as long as a couple of days then stop writing. Had a full box worth of unfinished journals back at my place."
"I confess," Glenn added, sheepishly, "I would only ever write when I was excited or really angry. It made me sound as though I was manic-depressive." Until you found God, C.J. thought at him, daring him to say it. He oughtn't to have bothered; it was obviously coming. "I find now that it's better to invest that time in prayer. God remembers longer than man."
"I don't think he does, choir boy."
"What do you mean?"
Okay, what did he mean by that? It had simply sounded good in his brain not to agree with Glenn. So, now that he was committed to it—and thirty-five years of life had taught him to recognize it as such, this knack for inventing reasons to support the bullshit that his mouth spewed—how did he defend man's constant errors of omission against the supposedly infallible God that Glenn adored so fucking much?
"God isn't remembering any of us."
"He has provided for us, brought us together, kept us safe. In these times of crisis, God saves." When C.J. couldn't fight back an incredulous grunt, Glenn continued, more forcefully. "It would be pushing the limit of credible coincidence to have such a group gathered here, would it not?"
"I don't follow."
"Well, for instance, we have a police officer, so there's a peacekeeper who's trained in keeping the law, keeping us all safe. Steven has a method of transporting us to safety. There's Michael, he's rather...innovative," Glenn fumbled. That was okay; there really was no way to describe Michael. "I can provide a modicum of spiritual guidance, if requested," and here there was a pointed look at him that C.J. ignored. "And there's you, of course, who happened to be here and be able to lock this place up, securing a haven for us all."
It occurred to C.J. to interrupt, but Glenn was on a roll.
"There are also very few of the fairer sex here. Not to generalize, of course," Glenn mitigated, a classic line meaning he intended to do exactly that, "but they are typically less well equipped to deal with physical struggle. Wait, wait, hear me out," he held up a hand to forestall any complaints. He needn't have bothered; neither of the pair of listeners would argue with this logic. "So few women, but the few we do have, er, that is to say, the few we did have..."
"Norma," Tucker nodded, doffing his cap in a surprisingly heartfelt gesture. "Good woman. Helluva trucker." C.J. could only shrug—up until she died, he had never really seen her.
"Yes, and that poor young woman."
"The pregnant chick, right?" Ana and the others who had found her hadn't needed to elaborate on what had happened to her. And he hadn't learned her name either.
"I find it hard to believe that women who might not have the physical prowess of some of our other friends, but possess skills and talents that are otherwise essential to our survival here, are here just by chance."
"Wait a second, Glenn," C.J. frowned. "How the hell do you figure that?"
"For one, Norma was able to carry us all to safety in a piece of machinery that not many could safely operate."
"Crack shot, too, I was in the cab with her," Tucker supplemented enthusiastically.
"And the Russian girl?"
"More symbolic than necessary," Glenn conceded, "but she was a sign of the new life that will eventually inherit this earth."
"Right," C.J. said, at a loss for better, more loquacious speech. The dead pregnant woman was a sign of what would own the earth. Either Glenn was not aware of the inference he had just made or he was ignorant enough to assume that the events of that night could be overlooked for the sake of a vision—his. He might not really have cared what happened to that girl, but he shuddered to think what she and the monster the others had described meant for the future.
"Well, I guess I can see what you're saying, Glenn," Tucker said, his tone guarded. "Ana's sure useful."
"Yes, what were the odds"—and here he leveled a severe look at C.J.—"that a medical professional would survive? The hospitals were among the first places overrun, according to the radio."
"Were they?" C.J. asked before he could catch himself. Of course, they would be. The injured would go there, and the injured would die and turn. Then there would be more injuries, more dead, more problems.
"Oh yes," Glenn intoned dramatically. "It's a miracle that young lady has survived."
"What about Monica?"
"Well, she..." Glenn faltered, his left eyelid twitching.
"Is she for the knocking-up, too?" C.J. grinned at Glenn's horror. "Well?"
"That's a very crude..."
"But that's more or less it, isn't it? Or can't you say that she's just here to relieve the tension of us heathens?" Hell, that was more or less the only function he imagine Monica served.
"We need women to ensure the survival of the human race," Glenn offered, though it didn't sound as if he really believed it. Seeing as he usually believed everything he said, that was rather remarkable.
"Some race," C.J. snarled, chugging his beer. "Ain't worth saving at this point, if you ask me."
He expected some more righteous anger, but the source was a surprise—Tucker. "Oh? Then why are you keeping track of your life in that book? Isn't so that if you die someone will remember you?" Tucker had on a shit-eating grin that spread clear across his homely mug. To Glenn, he deferred by saying, "other than God, of course," but it was from him that Tucker looked for an answer.
"I guess," he admitted, the beer loosening the sharper edge on his tongue. "Maybe," he bought some time and courage with another swig from the can. His audience didn't look like the type to be shaken, not when they were so close to getting an explanation out of him. "Maybe I don't like the idea of going down permanently."
"Without a name," Tucker said, his eyes unfocused as he looked backward into his own memories. There were stories, rushed explanations when he'd been let out, and hushed conversations since, about the pair of people from the truck who'd turned—Terry's girlfriend's dad and some lady no one knew. He'd die before telling Tucker or Glenn this, but when he'd heard the shotgun blast echo through the mall, he'd redoubled his efforts at detail in his date book.
"It's a terrible thing to die alone. That poor woman."
"Poor my ass," C.J. snarled, truth touching off his nerves—his bad ones. "It was her or you, right? Tough shit, that's life."
"I wonder," Glenn mused, not meeting his eye, "if she had kept a diary of her own, would we have known her any better?"
"It's not a fucking diary!" He was hollering—Ana was going to come out of Metropolis and kick his ass. Or worse, shame him to death; she was the type. It didn't matter. "It's not some fucking sob story about how nobody likes me or shit like that! I'm not a fucking female!"
"Hey, hey, relax, man—"
"Fuck you, too, Tucker!"
"Language," Glenn tittered.
"Shut the fuck up, Father Fuckwit," C.J. growled, but the fight had gone out of him that quickly. It was no use railing at Glenn or Tucker. Glenn would pray for his soul and warn him about the sin of wrath or something, and besides, Glenn didn't deserve it. And he even kind of liked Tucker as friend—the guy was more trustworthy than Steve, less holier-than-thou than Glenn, more friendly than Kenneth, more mature than Terry (or than Bart had been, for that matter), and less...whatever Michael was (if he had to choose, he'd have said 'annoyingly right all the goddamned time').
"So, what are you keeping track of there?" Tucker nodded at the little black book.
"It's just useful information."
"Like what?" Tucker leaned forward again to read it. "June 4, 2004." He paused, looked at the ceiling, calculating. "That today?"
"Best I can figure, yeah."
"June 4th," Tucker said to himself; he sounded as though he were trying to give the date some meaning. One thing C.J. had learned while keeping this log at the mall was that no date had meaning other than to mark the passage of time. Without governments, religions, industries, and superstition to parse out which days were of specific relevance, one day was as good as the next. Some days would be colder, some wetter, some sunnier, some windier, and that was it.
"Trinity Sunday is in two days," Glenn murmured without expectation of interest.
"That's all it says," Tucker said, shaking himself. "Just the date?"
"Haven't had time for anything else yet." He flipped back a week, and the book opened on the night of the dinner. Of course, his perspective that night had been a little different from Glenn or Tucker's. It had been the night the generators went out, the night Bart died, the night he'd escaped the cell for truants and shoplifters in the Security Office. He'd only noticed the full spread on one of the dining sets at Metropolis right after he'd been granted freedom in exchange for his help with the generators. The night Bart had died...
He flipped back a few more pages.
"May 25th," he read off, "five people broke in through loading dock behind Metropolis. Shotgunned lock, bolt still holding. Broke display window. None look sick. Picked up shotgun, .45 off two of them. Lance dead by croquet mallet, shot Lin and Ben in the head. Shooting them in the head is the only way to keep them down. Dumped bodies outside. Others painted roof. Thing are attracted to the mall—to us? A lot more of them now. Sited helicopter once around noon, no sightings since. Guests in Metropolis for the night. Bart is an idiot, Terry's looking shaky."
No one said anything for a minute. Neither Tucker nor Glenn knew the full story of the first group's entrance to the mall, though he gathered from their evident surprise that the others had made him out to be an asshole. Finding out that he kept track of the situation—was even on top of the situation—probably came as quite a shock.
"The next one just says 'TVs out.'" Tucker commented.
"Well, somebody locked me in the office that day."
"Oh, right." Tucker had the grace to appear embarrassed by forgetting this. "Why was that again?"
Here, C.J. squirmed internally. Nothing left but to tell the truth. "Because I wasn't going to let you in."
This silence was more uncomfortable than the one that had preceded it. It was a shameful silence for him as the other two found out, again, that he had the capacity to surprise them for the better or worse. Yes, he'd proven himself a somewhat capable survivor, a documenter of this new history, only now he'd just also told them that he would have been just as happy to let them die.
"I guess that makes sense," Tucker shrugged.
"What?" His ears burned. No way. No way had Tucker just, more or less, forgiven him, dismissed this that quickly.
"I am more grateful now that I am alive," Glenn added, his smile beatific. "It truly was a miracle, as I have always believed."
"You've got to be shitting me." He glanced at one, then the other. There were no signs that this was the case. "You're telling me neither one of you gives a rat's ass that I would just have let you stay out there to...to rot?'
"You'll make it up to me, then we'll call it even," Tucker chuckled to himself. "It's not like I don't get it, man. I probably would have done the same."
"It's harder to care for those you do not know. It's a central challenge to my faith, constantly," Glenn lectured.
"Color me impressed," C.J. whistled to himself, fighting the urge to smile and covering his failure to do so by draining away the last of his Bud. It gave him the extra couple of seconds he needed to resettle his face back into its typical half-scowl. "You guys're dumber than I thought."
"I prefer to think of it as more merciful," Glenn admonished.
"Whatever," C.J. grunted, leaning backwards on his stool. A feeling of tipsy relief made him want to spin around on the seat like a kid, go 'wheeeee!' and fall off laughing. God, he needed to get a hold of himself.
"Forgiveness is Godliness, in my experience," Glenn pressed on, "and it is not easily done but should be."
"Who said anything about forgiving?" Tucker huffed. "I just said I'd do the same. I'm a shit anyways, so what's that say about him, eh?" He jerked a thumb in C.J.'s direction.
"Fuck you very much, Tucker."
"Language," Glenn reminded him.
"Sorry, I guess." Not really, but it mollified Glenn which might prevent further sermons. Doubtful, but worth a shot.
"Regardless of what Tucker thinks, forgiveness is still a worthy thing to seek. From your God, from man, from anyone."
"In my experience, the only time it's worth forgiving someone is if you still want to screw them."
"Amen," Tucker applauded. "That calls for more beer!"
Glenn said nothing, excusing himself with a mere dip of his head towards C.J. and walking off. Weird, C.J. thought, but he probably should have seen it coming. Glenn always did get pissy about sex stuff. He should probably apologize, make amends, but that wasn't his style and never had been. He liked Tucker's philosophy better—forget about forgiving and just accept. Make up the difference later. It wasn't all that far removed from Glenn's way of thinking—the idea of atonement served as remonstrance for prior sins. Sooner or later, most of the people here would get it, Glenn included. C.J. swore they would.
However, it would take at least another three cans of beer to really bring out the truly righteous swearing.